BEFORE THE AFTER critically captures the COVID-19 pandemic with passion through the eyes of a poet, woman and gentle soul. Poems on adapting to the new environment, raging against a virus that has impacted us all and lamenting how this reflects a mistreatment of mother earth.

"Blending humor, disappointment and wisdom, Mary Anne invites us to share her travels navigating a world altered by the rise of Black Lives Matter and curtailed by COVID-19. Poetic vignettes narrate events cancelled due to the virus, an imaginative letter to humanity from a disappointed Gaia, how life during the time of coronavirus has radically changed. She explores what we have lost and how we transform and adapt."--Dr. Jennifer Lagier, Author of Camille Comes Unglued and Dystopia Playlist.

"Read this book straight through! Images in every poem build on the ones before to grow poem-by-poem increasingly profound. Lyrical words firing wonderful images - stanza by stanza, poem by poem - dig an entrance into unexpected depth.

Sometimes single words dissolved me through a floor I always saw as solid. If you want intellectual poetry, go elsewhere. For lyric poetry to enchant you - stay here - read this book!" -- John Calkins, author of Dad, Demons, Dames and a Dwarf: My Trip Down Freedom Road with Mancow Muller